March Sketchy Challenge

For this month's Sketchy Challenge at Canadian Scrapbooker, I decided to have some fun with another new Bo Bunny collection called "Family Is..."

I am POSITIVE that the paper designers at Bo Bunny had a real life peek inside MY family when they came up with these hilarious and playful stickers...

Here is Sue Sykes' awesome March sketch...

Immediately I thought of some recent pics of my teenagers.  Sure, I had one "good" shot of them together for DramaQueen's birthday, but why scrap that photo when I had 10 other funny outtakes?  

I love the colourful, bright patterns....a reflection of my chaotic, loud teens!

Using the card stock and chipboard stickers makes designing a breeze...

I also did a fast forward video of how this layout came together. [You can click HERE to go to YouTube and watch on a bigger screen.  You can also click "Subscribe" if you'd like to watch all my videos]

I hope you can join in the fun over at the Sketchy gallery this month!  It's a friendly online community with lots of inspiration!

Time Travel

Today I thought I'd share a few layouts I designed for my "Time Travel" article in the Spring issue of Canadian Scrapbooker magazine.

Creating heritage pages and vintage designs is one of my favourite styles of scrapbooking.

FabScraps was perfect to use for this layout "Farm Girls,"  featuring a photo of my mom and her cousin in the farm yard.  Why are they wearing pretty white dresses and playing outside?? It's probably Sunday!

I used The Crafter's Workshop chicken wire stencil and Stephanie Barnard/Clearsnap black spray on the background paper.

The title was cut with a Cricut.

The crocheted doily was bought at a garage sale last summer.

I coloured the chipboard elements with inks.

My next layout is made with beautiful Melissa Frances products....

The photo is my cousin Cindy who grew up on the same farm as my mom did!

To make this flower, I just covered a chipboard circle with liquid adhesive and wound the ribbon around.  Then I added a pretty pearl bling centre.

I also made some simple spiral roses...

The alphabet stickers and white resin pieces are also Melissa Frances.

This last layout was designed with the gorgeous Graphic 45 "A Ladies Diary" collection....

My mom's 27th birthday!  Love her dress.

Here are some close-ups. 

I fussy cut these roses and leaves from the patterned paper.

The alphabet stickers are Graphic 45 too, and the pearls are Stampin' Up

A very sweet friend of mine, Michelle Marks, also used Ladies Diary and designed this gorgeous vintage tea box and mailed it to me for my birthday....

Click HERE to visit Michelle's blog and see a tutorial on how to make this tea box.  

I love it, Michelle!  Thank you so much.

And thank you, Canadian Scrapbooker, for giving me the opportunity to design and write "Time Travel." 

My heritage pages are precious to me, and I really enjoy sharing them with all of you.

More news is GOOD news!

This seems to be a week of announcements and new opportunities for me!

I'm so excited to say that I have a layout published in Kristine Davidson's new sketch book, that is now for sale!

Many of you are familiar with Kristine's amazing sketches and her website "Creative Scrappers."  Lucky for us, she decided to design Volume 2!

It's packed with 125 sketches and wonderful designers' layouts based on ALL the sketches!  WOW.

I am so fortunate to be part of this fantastic sketch book, and here is my double page layout based on one of her sketches....

These are DramaQueen's back to school photos, taken last fall.  First year of high school!  yikes.

You've probably noticed that I have been loving the new Bo Bunny collections lately.  This is made with Isabella....beautiful greys and pinks!

Lucky for me, DQ has decided she likes PINK again! woohoooo!  So she has "allowed" me to scrapbook with pink papers.  Ironically, her previous fave colour has been grey....so the perfect match was made!

And lucky for YOU....I have a coupon code so you can purchase your own sketch book today for only $8.  So instead of buying yourself 2 frappa mocha caramel skinny vanilla latte with whip coffees.....you can own this sketch book and have a ton of inspiration at your fingertips! 

Your coupon code for a digital version you can download is  CWS2Discount.

You can also order a printed version even if you live halfway around the world!

Click HERE to shop at the Creative Scrappers store and buy the best Sketch book ever :)

Awesome Announcements!

I think everyone knows by now that I feel so lucky to be part of the team at Canadian Scrapbooker magazine.  Writing and designing for this wonderful publication is a dream come true!

When the Spring 2013 issue was released this past week, I was surprised and thrilled to see my little head on the cover, along with my name and article title "Time Travel."  wow.  This blew me away!

A big shout out to Christy Dean who took this head shot.  She is so talented!

I also have a second regular feature article called "Double the Fun."  

Here is my new  Double the Fun sketch for the Fall 2013 issue....

And my layout sample (you can see both on the Canadian Scrapbooker website Home page).

Featuring BabyOfTheFamily and Bo Bunny's new "Prairie Chic" collection.

I'd love for you to use my sketch and submit your layouts!  Click HERE to see the submissions page online at the magazine.

As well, today on the Canadian Scrapbooker blog, it's Tuesday with the Team, and my studio tour is posted there.  

If you'd like to take a look into my scrap space, click HERE to visit the CS blog.  I'm not super organized, but I love my studio :)

My final announcement is the WINNER of the Crop Circles blog hop......drum roll.......

it's NATASHA CONNOLLY!!!!!!!

Congratulations, Natasha! 

Whew...that is a lot of announcing...but I am not done.  Stay tuned for more news later this week :)

First Ever Crop Circles Blog Hop

Welcome to the first ever Crop Circles blog hop.  We are a group of crafters who share ideas and inspiration on all kinds of projects.  Most of us are either Newfoundlanders or have a link to the Island.

I was fortunate to be invited to join Crop Circles by my friend Michelle Marks who lives in Corner Brook.  Although Michelle calls me a "Mainlander,"  she screeched me in last fall when I visited her and kissed a cod.  That alone should grant me a lifelong membership in Crop Circles!

For the blog hop, we all created layouts based on this sketch from www.sketchbook365.com 

If this design looks a little familiar, it's because I posted my layout here last Friday.

That's me at age 10 dressed up for a Mother's Day contest.  To read more about the story behind this photo, please click HERE.  

I challenged myself to use mostly embellishments an only one piece of 12 x 12 paper for this design. Wow.  That was tough! But I purchased a package of embellishments that one of my local scrapbook stores sells called TM Exclusives. 

Some close-ups...

Michelle Marks sent me this tea set die cut. Love it!  

  

For every comment you leave along the hop, you will be entered to win a $50 prize package from Stampin' Up! 

I also have a Bo Bunny prize package if you leave a comment on my blog and are a Follower, and there are more prize packages along the way.

Here are the participating blogs.

Cheryl Ashworth - http://cherylane.wordpress.com/

Shar Strahan & Brande Strahan - partner with Cheryl Ashworth

Kelly Klapstein - YOU ARE HERE

Rhea Skomorowski - http://www.rheaski.blogspot.ca/

Natasha Connolly (partner with Rhea)

Catherine Stockley- http://catherinelovesstamps.blogspot.ca/

Michelle Marks - http://michellesscrapbits.blogspot.ca/

Darlene Head Whalley http://cherrytat.blogspot.com/

Corina Mayo Thorne - http://craftycorina.blogspot.com/

Sara Case Strickland - http://wp.me/p280bG-FE

Lori Smith - http://itsabouttimeblogspot.wordpress.com/


Elaine Lambe Beck (partner with Lori Smith)

Liz Davis - http://piecesofmyeverydaylife.wordpress.com/

Rexene Lockyer (Send to Cathy Caines)

Cathy Caines - http://cathycaines.blogspot.ca/


If you are hopping in order, then you came from Cheryl's blog and will visit Rhea's blog next.  Click HERE to hop over to Rhea.

You have until March 3rd to finish the hop....and leave comments to win!  Have fun and good luck :)